


the son you always had

by all_these_ghosts



Category: The X-Files
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, Kidfic, The X-Files Revival, really not joking about the angst though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-17 12:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8143144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_these_ghosts/pseuds/all_these_ghosts
Summary: His father has never been a real person. He’s only always a whispered name, a fading photograph; everything Will knows about him is mediated through someone else.(or: four lives William Scully didn’t have, and one that he did)





	1. Chapter 1

**I. 2016**

There’s only one picture of his dad. Well, there are more pictures somewhere in the house, but there’s only one that hangs up in the hall and stares Will down every morning. He sees how his mom’s eyes mist over sometimes, sees how they dart between the picture and Will’s face. She doesn’t say _you look so much like your father_ , but Will knows he does.

When his school pictures come he holds one up to the photo. The similarities are obvious: dark hair, big nose (his mom calls it _prominent_ or _distinguished_ , but Will doesn’t see it that way). Will is tall - at fifteen he’s already five-ten; he outgrew his mom the summer before seventh grade - and in the picture his dad towers over his mom. They’d be a ridiculous-looking couple, honestly, if they didn’t also look obsessed with each other.

Most parents hate each other, as far as Will can tell. At best, they display a cool indifference. He wonders if that would be true of his parents, if his dad were still around. Somehow he doesn’t think so. It’s obvious that his mom’s love has survived fifteen years of his dad being dead, so it probably would have survived fifteen years of raising him.

His mom doesn’t even date. He’s never asked her about it - God, that would be mortifying - but he hears her talking about it with his grandma sometimes. He’s overheard her saying things like _I still don’t think I could love anyone else_ , and when he was a kid he thought that it was gross and mushy, but now it just makes him really, really sad.

It’s Tuesday, and on Tuesdays his mom works late at the hospital so he makes dinner. Tonight it’s Kraft macaroni and cheese and a slightly wilted salad. Last week it was scrambled eggs. Will’s cooking repertoire is limited, but so is his mom’s. They get take-out at least twice a week.

His mom takes a heaping bowl of salad and a tiny scoop of mac and cheese; Will does the opposite. They eat at the kitchen counter. There’s a table in the dining room, but it’s reserved for Sunday dinners with Grandma and whichever holidays they host. Will can’t wait until he’s old enough to bail on Thanksgiving at Uncle Bill’s house.

“I’ve been thinking about skipping senior year,” Will says, stirring the bright orange noodles with his fork. “I’ll have enough credits to graduate at the end of this year, technically, but if I finish out my junior year, I’ll have a bunch of AP credits, too.”

She smiles at him. He loves that about his mom. Lots of parents would freak out at their kid announcing something like that, but she always takes him seriously, and she always trusts him. “Do you want to travel?”

“I was thinking about working for a year. You know, to make some money for college.”

At that, her expression shifts. “You don’t need to do that, love,” she says gently.

Will shifts in his chair. “I just want to help.”

“I know, but you don’t need to. You can go to any school you want. If you want to work for a year, you can, but your college tuition is more than covered. Believe me.”

“Mom, I know how much money you make, and I know how expensive it is to live here.” He’s looked up their condo on Zillow. Not to even mention that she’s been paying private school tuition since he was in kindergarten.

She sighs and puts her fork down. “Will, your father left us a lot of money.”

Will has always assumed there must be a stash somewhere, though he still doesn’t see how it could cover four years at Stanford. “How much?”

His mom never lies to him, and she never talks down.“His family was very well off, and he left everything to us. After I sold his family’s properties…it’s a few million dollars, Will. You don’t need to worry about money. Ever.”

All he can think to say is, “Oh.” But that number scrolls through his head all evening, and a lot of things start to make sense. The expensive summer programs, the vacations to Europe and Asia, the fact that he goes to school with the children of senators and ambassadors. Some of his classmates have parents who are doctors, too, but it’s always both parents, and one of them is always an anesthesiologist.

It’s another puzzle piece: his father was rich. Will wonders if that changes anything. You know, other than his whole future. A few _million_ dollars. Okay. Sure.

Late that night Will comes into the kitchen for a snack. The kettle’s on and he hears his mom in her bedroom, talking on the phone. Her voice is muffled through the door, but he hears her say, “I still miss him.” Will closes his eyes.

His father has never been a real person. He’s only always a whispered name, a fading photograph; everything Will knows about him is mediated through someone else. 

After a few minutes his mom comes out, eyes still bright. “Will? What are you doing up so late?”

He holds up a slice of peanut butter toast, half eaten. “Hungry.”

Her face softens. “You’re gonna be eight feet tall, kiddo.”

“I’d settle for six,” he says, taking another bite. “Who were you talking to?”

The kettle sings, and she pours each of them a cup of chamomile tea, stirring some honey into Will’s. “One of your dad’s friends.”

“Byers?”

She nods.

“Mom, you know that he’s _your_ friend, right?” This always bothers him. His father has been dead for longer than Will’s been alive. It seems absurd that those guys are still _your dad’s friends_ , rather than hers.

When she looks at him her eyes are sad. “It’s just a habit, Will.”

“When I was little, I thought you and Byers were gonna get married,” Will says, grinning a little at the memory.

His mom chokes out a laugh. “ _Really_?”

“Yeah. I mean, he was nice and smart and…clean.” Compared to Frohike and Langly, especially. “He seemed like he’d be good. And he never had any girlfriends, and you never…” His voice drops off.

“Will,” his mom says, hesitant, “does it bother you that I never - that I haven’t—“

“No, of course not,” he says hurriedly. “It’s just. I mean, you could, it wouldn’t bother me. There’s like, OK Cupid and stuff.”

“I think I’m a little old for that.”

He shrugs. “That’s how Parker’s mom met her boyfriend.”

“Yeah.” She puts her hands around her mug, exhales across the steaming surface. “Will, I know this is hard for you to understand. And maybe if I’d met someone, things would have been different. But I…I’ve never really wanted to find someone else. Your father was…”

Will looks down at the counter. “I don’t know what he was,” he says quietly. “I don’t…I don’t miss him, Mom. I never even knew him.”

She bites her lip and he knows he’s hurt her feelings, but she doesn’t say anything, just waits for him to gather his thoughts. His mom is good like that.

“And he never even knew I existed.” There’s just the crust left of his toast, and he starts picking at it, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs on the counter. “Mom, you were saying that he left all this stuff to us, all his money and his house or whatever, but that’s not true. He didn’t even know about me. He left all of it to _you_.” He can hear the thickness in his voice, and he resents it.

“Oh, Will. Is that what you think?” She sounds like her heart is breaking.

“Of course it is,” he mumbles. “It’s true.”

Tears spark in her eyes. He’s made his mom cry. _Good work, asshole_ , he thinks. But she brushes the hair back from his forehead like he’s still a little kid, and he can’t help but be comforted. “There are so many kinds of truth, love,” she says. 

“Okay, Mom.”

“He would have been so happy when he found out. And he’d be so proud of you.” She puts her arm around him and even though he’s too tall for it to be comfortable, he leans his head on her shoulder. “You’re curious and hard-working and kind, and that’s all anyone could want from their children. It’s what he’d have wanted.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t know that.”

“Then I guess you’re just going to have to trust me.” Her fingers tangle in the gold chain at her neck, and the familiar gesture catches his eye.

“Is that why you don’t date people? Because you think he’s…up there somewhere, watching us?” Will still goes to church for Christmas and Easter, because he thinks it’d break his mom’s heart if he didn’t, but he stopped believing a long time ago. If he ever did.

“It’s nothing that literal,” she says, and quickly changes the subject. “But Will…I don’t want you to worry about me, okay? Worrying is my job. It’s your job to ace your AP Physics quiz tomorrow.”

He groans. “I thought you said I just had to be curious and kind.”

“And hard-working,” she reminds him.

“Right,” he says, half smiling. Together they clear away their midnight snack - compulsive neatness is something he definitely got from her. Once everything’s put away, he tells her good night.

“Good night, love,” she says, and he suddenly sees how tired she looks. Blurry around the edges. “You’re okay?”

He thinks about that for a minute. Finally he says, “I know you don’t like to talk about him. But I think…it would be good if you did, sometimes.”

His mom is nodding while he says this. “I can do that.” Then re-evaluates: “I can try.”

“You loved him a lot,” Will says. He feels brazen; it’s not something he’s ever said out loud. It’s not something he’s ever heard her say, either.

“Yes, I do,” she says. The change in tense doesn’t slip past him. “And I know you hate to hear this, Will, but you’ll understand someday.”

After she goes to bed he stands in the dark kitchen for a long time, looking at her closed door, looking at the photo on the wall. A history of loss. And he feels like a traitor when he whispers: “I hope not.”


	2. Chapter 2

**II. 2012**

Even though he’s not supposed to, Will knows what his house is really made from.

Other kids have houses built from bricks and mortar, or linoleum siding, or wood and nails and the sweat of their grandfathers. Will’s been in houses like that. Sturdy on the outside and warm on the inside.

Will’s house is made of secrets and ghosts, and it is fragile, and it is always empty.

Sometimes he comes home from school and his grandma is there instead of his dad. He guesses he should be grateful for this: he has friends whose parents have disappeared without saying a word to anyone. When his dad disappears - to the desert or Greenland or some farm town in Iowa - he always makes sure someone is there to take care of Will.

And he always brings back a postcard. When Will was younger he loved those postcards. He tacked them up all over his room: pictures of weird rock formations, skyscrapers, glaciers, towns built into cliffs. Now that he’s older, he’d rather have a normal dad than a thousand postcards, but there’s no take-backs when it comes to parents.

Usually his dad is holed up in his office writing when Will gets home, and he doesn’t come out until Will bangs on the door. Today, though, his dad is sitting on the couch waiting for him to arrive. He smiles. “Hey, buddy,” he says. “How was middle school?”

Will shrugs off his backpack. “Fine,” he says. The bag is full of textbooks - five of them - and the sound it makes when it hits the floor is _deafening_. That’s one of the words on his first vocabulary list of the year. As usual, he already knows all the words.

His dad’s smile flags. “Just fine?”

Will considers the merits of honesty. Middle school is exactly as terrible as everyone promised. Most of the kids he hung out with last year ignored him all day. He ate lunch by himself. He made the mistake of correcting his social studies teacher in front of the class - Antarctica is _not_ a country - and thus earned Mr. Jacobs’s enmity on day one.

Gym was okay. They started off by running a mile, and Will was the fastest in his class. He’d wished he could keep running forever. Leave the track, leave the teachers, leave Willow Grove Middle School far behind. Maybe if he runs far enough he’ll see some of those places from the postcards. Maybe he’ll send one home himself.

“It sucked,” Will says flatly. “Everything sucks.” He flops down on the couch next to his dad.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” He crosses his arms, and his dad just looks at him and waits - he’s good like that - and eventually Will gives in. “My teachers are stupid and no one likes me. Some kid threw up on the bus so everything smelled like puke all day. And I still don’t know how to open my locker.”

His dad is clearly fighting back a smile. “Can you tell me one good thing that happened?”

Will shrugs. “I ran really fast in gym.”

“Yeah?”

“A seven-minute mile.” He knows that’s really fast. He looked it up: it’s almost the 95th percentile for eleven-year-old boys.

His dad whistles low. “That’s awesome, Will. You’d beat your old man.”

“Mrs. Callahan says I should join the track team.”

“I think that’s a great idea.”

Will looks at him askance. “I wouldn’t be able to take the bus home if I did track,” he explains. “Practice is after school. You’d have to come pick me up. Like, every day.”

“Oh.” His dad leans back, letting his body get absorbed by the mushy couch cushions. “Well, we could try it.”

“It’s okay, Dad. I don’t really want to anyway. I just like to run. I don’t need to compete with anybody.” That’s kind of true. He does just like to run, and he doesn’t really care about competing or prizes. But it might be nice to hang out with other kids who like to run. And being good at sports is a real thing, not like knowing all the constellations or being really good at computers. Other kids like you when you’re good at sports.

On the other hand, no one is impressed when you’re the kid with the weirdo dad who never shows up when he’s supposed to. No one likes the kid who has to bum rides to his house in the middle of nowhere, the kid whose family never takes their turn with the carpool.

His dad is chewing on his lip, the way he does when he’s thinking about something really hard. Sometimes Will catches himself doing the same thing.

“Really, it’s fine,” Will says, and he knows he sounds snotty, and he doesn’t care. “It wouldn’t change anything. It’s gonna suck no matter what.”

“Yeah, probably,” his dad admits. “But things will get better.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It’s a shitty time,” his dad says. Like he knows anything. Like he isn't a thousand years old. “Middle school is—“

“That’s not what I mean,” Will snaps. “Things don’t always get better. You should know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a grown-up, and you sit in here all day being sad all by yourself. _Your_ life isn’t better. Your life sucks, just like mine.” Will gets up from the couch and stomps across the room, glaring at a dust bunny in the corner. Other kids have parents who clean. Sometimes he sees his dad tinkering with stuff, but their house is always a huge mess. Will’s room is his only respite: perfectly organized, his books in alphabetical order, his postcards at right angles to the wall. He knows he got that from his mom.

“My life doesn’t suck, Will,” his dad says quietly. “I wish it were easier. But it doesn’t suck.”

Will doesn’t turn around to look at him. Adults have to say stuff like that. They probably tell themselves the same lies. That seems like something to look forward to: all the adults Will knows are extremely good at lying to themselves. Will practices all the time - _you don’t need any friends, you don’t miss Mom, everything is fine_ \- but he hasn’t mastered it yet.

“Hey,” his dad says from behind him. “Open House is tomorrow, right?”

Will scuffs his shoe on the floor. “Yeah. But you don’t have to come.”

“Of course I’m gonna come.” His dad sounds hurt.

With a sigh, Will turns to him and says, “It’s fine. But can you just like…not tell anyone your name.” Will has his mom’s last name. It wasn’t a big deal when she was alive, but now he hates explaining why his last name is different from his dad’s. When he was younger Will asked if he could change it, but his dad told him no. _One day you’ll be grateful_ , he’d said. _To have that part of her._

But now his dad just looks bewildered. “What? Why?”

“Because then everybody always asks about it,” Will says. He’s frustrated that he even has to say it. It’s obvious.

It’s also obvious that his dad still doesn’t get it. “Will, lots of kids have different last names from their parents.”

“Not around here,” Will insists. “And even if they do, they have the same last name as their dad if they live with him. And their other parent is just like, divorced or in Idaho or something. They’re not _dead_.”

Now his dad gets up and walks over to him. He puts his hands on Will’s shoulders, and his eyes are sad. “What’s the problem, kiddo?”

Furiously Will blinks back the tears that are forming. He’s too old to cry. “I just…I don’t want to be the tragedy kid anymore. Okay? There’s new kids in middle school who don’t know anything about me, and if you tell the teacher what happened to Mom then everybody’s gonna know and then it’s all anybody knows about you and I can’t—I don’t want to be that kid anymore.”

“Is that how you feel?” his dad asks, using his psychologist voice. Will hates that. “Like the tragedy kid?”

“It’s what everyone else thinks. It’s not fair.”

Then his dad pulls Will into a hug, and even though half of him wants to pull away, he doesn’t. “None of this is fair,” he says, sounding choked, his chin on top of Will’s head.

Will wonders if he’d be taller than his mom by now. Probably. The thought makes him anxious and angry, and he steps away. For a split second his dad is still holding his arms out, and that, too, makes Will anxious and angry. His dad isn’t allowed to need him.

“What are you looking for when you go?” Will asks, suddenly sharp. “All those different places. What are you trying to find?”

“Answers,” his dad says after a while. He doesn’t elaborate.

Will nods. “She’s not gonna come back, Dad.”

His dad’s jaw twitches.

“You still think you can save her, but _you can’t save her_. She’s _dead_. And it doesn’t matter how many stupid ghosts you find, or monsters or aliens. You’re never going to bring her back.” And suddenly he’s just crying, really hard and he can’t stop it, and he doesn’t want to be so mean but he doesn’t know what else to say or how else to say it.

For a long time neither of them says anything, and there’s just the sound of Will sniffling. Maybe this time he broke something that can’t be put back together.

Finally his dad says, quietly, “I miss her too.” Then he walks past Will into his office and shuts the door.

Will misses her in flashes. The way her hair looked, shiny and bright and so different from his. The way she sounded reading to him, how her voice got deep for Aslan. The way she smelled. After the funeral his dad took down all the pictures of her, and five-year-old Will gathered them all back up and brought them to his room. Most of them are still there, in a box under his bed, but there’s one on his bedroom wall and one in the living room. He knows there are some in his dad’s office, too. Maybe he’s looking at them now.

His dad still wears his wedding ring. Will sees the way other moms look at him: at his face, then his left hand, then back up, disappointed. He hopes that they’re always disappointed.

It’s a really, really long time before his dad opens the door. When he comes out he looks mostly the same, but his eyes are red and he’s wearing sneakers. He says, “Do you want to go for a run?”

Will eyes him dubiously. “Seriously?”

His dad acts casual. “Sure. It sounds like you can keep up with me.”

“For a mile.”

“Then we’ll run a mile. Come on, lace up. The boys are coming over for dinner tonight, so we gotta be back before they get here.”

Still a little mystified, Will does as he’s told. They walk out to the gate and lock it behind them, then start to jog down the dirt road.

It’s easier than Will thought it would be to match their paces. His dad’s strides are longer, but Will is quick on his feet and the wind is behind them. The air is still hot and so thick he can taste it, but it feels good in his lungs. The sun and the wind, and the sound of his father’s feet and his, beating their imperfect rhythm into the dust.

When they circle back to the house, it’s still fragile, still empty. But his dad left a light on in the window.


	3. Chapter 3

**III. 2008**

It’s the last day of school before Christmas, and William is stuck in a red sweater with a snowman on it. It’s way too warm to wear a sweater and the nearest snowman is hundreds of miles away, but there’s no use arguing with Grandma about stuff like this.

His cousin Matty is also wearing a dumb Christmas sweater - his is green, with Rudolph on the front - and they walk to school in shared misery. Matty is in fourth grade, and he walks William to school every day. William is glad to have him. Most second-graders don’t have a big kid to protect them.

Not that Matty is very threatening in the Rudolph sweater.

They part ways when they get to the front door of the school. Today is a fake day, all songs and cookies and watching Disney movies on the whiteboard.

In the morning, Mrs. Marquez sort of pretends to teach. They do a math lesson where they add and subtract candy canes, and during art they make snowmen out of cotton balls. William is not the only kid in his class wearing a dumb snowman sweater.

William loves Mrs. Marquez, with her big eyes and her soft voice. A couple of the kids have accidentally called her _Mom_ this year, and William is deeply glad that he isn’t one of them. It seems even worse, somehow, to do that when you don’t have a mom of your own.

(William doesn't yet know the details of his parents’ deaths. He knows that it was a car accident, he knows that it was a tragedy. He doesn't know his parents were fugitives on the run from the law. In a few years Matty will turn mean, as children tend to do, and he will be the one who tells William the truth, taunting him: _you’re a criminal too, you’re gonna go to jail, you’re just like them_. Years after that he’ll apologize, and William will barely remember that it ever happened - they’ll have been friends for so long, and there will be so much water under the bridge.)

After lunch Mrs. Marquez announces that it’s time for the class party, and she brings out cookies. There are sugar cookies and chocolate chip and the worst: oatmeal raisin. William sits in the back row, which means he always gets last pick of treats, but today he has a plan. He watches the first two rows go up and pick their cookies. Like he predicted, nobody takes the oatmeal raisin - except for Joanna, but she eats kale chips at lunch and can’t be trusted. The chocolate chip cookies are the most popular, and that’s what William has his eye on.

Once the box is down to three chocolate chips with fifteen kids still to go, William _reaches_. Just a little. Just enough to sort of _slide_ the chocolate chip cookies off to the side, so the other kids don’t notice them. The cookies don’t really move - he’s pretty sure he could do that, actually, but it seems like somebody would notice - it’s more that he makes them blurry, or moves everyone else’s eyes out of the way.

This is why William is so good at card games.

When there are just two kids left in front of him, William stops focusing on the cookies. Nate and Dani take two of the chocolate chip cookies, and for once, William gets one too. Sure, he has a headache for the rest of the afternoon, but it’s a small price to pay.

William knows that most people can’t do that stuff. He mentioned it to his grandma exactly once, and she’d been upset and terrified and mostly disbelieving, so he hasn’t brought it up since.

At two o’clock it’s movie time, and Mrs. Marquez puts the class to a vote. Sometimes William wonders if he could fix things like this, too - if he could _slide_ his favorite movie into people’s brains - but something about the idea makes him uncomfortable, and he knows that he’ll never try.

(He never does. In fact, as the years go on, William grows less and less comfortable with his powers; by the time he’s twenty, he doesn’t even really believe in them. He never uses them again after that - at least not on purpose. He remains improbably good at cards.)

He wouldn’t have needed to use his powers, anyway. The class picks _Lilo and Stitch_ , which is his favorite movie. Well, that and _Return of the Jedi_ and _Wall-E_. Pretty much anything with aliens or robots, actually. But _Lilo and Stitch_ is special: William understands Lilo, understands why she fights the kids at school, understands why she needs Stitch. He thinks that Stitch would be okay no matter what - he’s super-strong, and he’s an alien - but Lilo really needs him.

When the bell rings there are still a few minutes left, and the kids who don’t take the bus stick around to watch the end. William likes happy endings. He likes Lilo’s family: little and broken and still good. 

Matty is waiting outside his classroom door when William finally packs up. “Took you long enough,” he says.

“We were finishing the movie,” says William.

“You’ve seen that movie a hundred times.”

“Eighty-six.”

“You keep count?” Matty asks, bewildered.

William shakes his head. “I don’t have to. I just sort of…know.”

“Weirdo,” Matty says cheerfully. “Come on, let’s go home.”

Uncle Bill and Aunt Tara and Matty - and Rebecca, but she’s only three and extremely boring - live on the same block as William and his grandmother. Most days they go to William’s house after school, because Aunt Tara only lets them eat carrot sticks for snack and Grandma will let them eat just about anything. William’s heard them argue about it before.

Grandma accosts them as soon as they walk in. “You wore your sweaters!” she exclaims, and William gives her a skeptical look. She’s the one who made him wear it. “Look at you boys.”

“It’s kind of hot for these,” Matty says.

“Let me just get a picture before you take them off.” Grandma pulls out her phone and Matty and William offer up toothy if unconvincing smiles.

After she’s satisfied with the picture, Grandma hugs them both. “You look just like your mother,” Grandma says to William, patting his hair down where it sticks up in the back. Her eyes get all teary and William just nods dutifully. He hears that a lot. It’s probably the freckles.

(William does not look particularly like his mother. If any of the Scullys had known Fox Mulder as a boy, they would be shocked at how closely William resembles him. As he grows up he’ll take on more of his mother’s aspect, but at seven, he is a nearly perfect duplicate of his father. But he does have some of his mother’s mannerisms, and all of her brilliance. And all of her freckles.)

Matty flips on the TV while William carefully unpacks his backpack. He won’t need it for two whole weeks: two weeks of Legos and video games and books. Some of his friends from school are going to come over, too. William loves Christmas vacation, even though he doesn’t really love Christmas. 

At Christmas, everything is about parents. All the commercials are about moms and dads buying the perfect gift. Santa asks if you behaved for your mom and dad all year. In all of the Christmas books, the moms bake cookies and the dads tuck the kids in. At Christmas, it’s impossible for William to forget that he doesn’t have parents.

For the rest of the year William doesn’t think about his parents much. He didn’t know them at all, and Grandma hardly ever talks about them, so he thinks about them the same way he thinks about Aslan or Luke Skywalker: his parents are mythical creatures, more story than flesh and blood. And all of the superheroes are orphans. Last year Matty took out _Harry Potter_ from the library and William read the first one. He’s glad that his family isn’t like the Dursleys. He’s glad he doesn’t have to live under the stairs.

In the living room William neatly lines up his own library books on the shelf. Unlike Matty, most of what he reads is from the nonfiction section. He loves learning about weird stuff: aliens and robots and monsters. In September he wrote a report about black holes, and Mrs. Marquez put a gold star sticker on it. He liked the star, but it seemed like a bad idea to put it on a paper about black holes, when all they do is swallow stars up.

“Oh, William,” his grandmother says, coming over to cluck her tongue. “Can’t you read about something nice?”

He shrugs and starts rearranging the books, this time in alphabetical order. “I like this stuff. It’s interesting.”

Grandma turns her head to read the titles on the spines. “ _The Mystery of Bigfoot_?”

“That one’s really good,” William says, still staring at his books, tongue stuck out in concentration. “It tells all about the people who’ve seen him. There’s real pictures in there too.”

She settles into the armchair next to the bookshelf. William can feel her looking at him.

“Grandma? What’s wrong?”

Her eyes are looking off into the distance. “Your parents were interested in those kinds of things. Mysteries. The unexplained.”

William is very, very careful. She hardly ever talks about his parents. “Really?”

She nods, but doesn’t volunteer anything else.

“And aliens?” he asks, cautiously.

Grandma laughs, but it’s not a nice sound. “Yes.”  


He lets this sit for a minute. He wonders if his parents would be afraid of his powers. If they’d believe. Or maybe he wouldn’t have powers at all - maybe they really are special orphan powers, like in all the books. For the first time, it occurs to him that this isn’t a very good trade. Harry would probably rather have his parents than be the chosen one and have to fight Voldemort all the time. He wonders if he’ll have to fight anybody when he’s older.

(He won’t. William will never lift a hand in anger to anyone, even as a child; when he’s grown, he’ll still take spiders outside instead of killing them. To his grandmother’s frustration he stops eating meat at thirteen and never touches it again. There is something gentle in him that never breaks.)

William looks down at the last book in his hands. _The Truth About Alien Abductions_ , thirty-two glossy pages long. “They would like me, right?”

When he glances up, Grandma is looking right at him.

“My parents,” he clarifies. “If they were here.”

She pulls him into her lap, even though he’s getting a little big for that. “They love you no matter what, baby,” she says, and William smells her familiar smell.

“Yeah.”

She taps him on the nose. “And I love you, and so do lots of other people. Uncle Bill and Aunt Tara and Matty and Rebecca all love you.”

“And Uncle Charlie and Aunt Jessica,” he recites, “and Grandpa and Aunt Melissa from heaven.” William pauses. “It would be better if they were here, though. And my mom and dad.”

Grandma hugs him tighter. “Of course it would, baby.”

The alien on the cover stares up at him. “Maybe they’d read this to me if they were here,” he says. “If they liked space and stuff.”

“Do you want me to read it to you?” Grandma asks.

His eyes go big. “Really?” She’s never offered to read him one of his library books; usually she tries to convince him to read something else instead. A nice book, about penguins or trains.

“Really,” she says, and she takes the book and opens it up in front of them. “The universe is full of unsolved mysteries,” she begins, “both terrible and wonderful,” and he closes his eyes to listen to her voice.

The universe is full of unsolved mysteries, and that night, for the first time, William dreams of finding some of the answers. One day he will.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV. 2012**

His mom actually wears the hat. She giggles - _giggles_ , like a bake sale mom or a mom who’s had too much wine while she supervises a sleepover, instead of his serious scientist mom - when she puts it on.

“This is too big,” she says, and she’s right. The brim covers most of her face.

Will’s dad pulls the brim all the way down. “I think it’s perfect,” he teases. “And since you lost my old Yankees t-shirt, it’s your only option.”

“Mulder,” she complains from behind the hat.

“Scully,” he complains right back, grinning at her.

People always notice that his parents call each other by their last names. His friends ask him about it. He tells them it’s an FBI thing, and that usually shuts them up. The fact that his parents used to be FBI agents has imbued him with a certain degree of inalienable coolness, even though they have regular jobs now.

She takes the hat off and sticks it on Will’s head instead, on top of the Yankees cap he’s already wearing. In real life Will likes the Nats best, but for one weekend a year, he’ll be a Yankees fan for his dad.

His dad, who is practically glowing with excitement. Once a year, they take the train up to New York, stay in a hotel, and see at least one Yankees game. The first year they went the Yankees went on to win the World Series, so now it’s good luck to keep the tradition. Of course, the Yankees haven’t won since, but every year Will’s dad believes.

For his part, Will is mostly excited to be out of school. He likes playing baseball - and he’s actually really good, thanks to all the afternoons spent playing with his dad - but he _really_ likes playing parent-sanctioned hooky.

Will plays Angry Birds on his mom’s phone while they pretend-argue about the hat. It’s honestly pretty gross. He loves his parents, obviously, and he’s glad they like each other, but they don’t have to be so… _handsy_ about it. Besides, they have places to be. “It’s one o’clock,” Will announces without looking up from the phone.

His dad glances over at the bedside clock, as though Will were making it up. “Yeah, it’s time to go. Come on, Scully. I’ll buy you a hat that fits.” He sticks the hat on his own head, where it fits perfectly.

On the walk from their hotel to Yankee Stadium, his parents hold hands. This is also kind of gross, but he’s used to it. His parents also seem to think it’s fine to kiss in front of other people - including him, and, worse, including his friends. On many occasions he has assured them that this is _not_ fine, but it hasn’t sunk in yet.

“What do you think, Will? Hot dogs?” his dad asks. The sun is bright and it’s warm for September; perfect baseball weather. Perfect hot dog weather.

“Obviously,” he says.

His dad grins at him, kind of evilly. “If your mom lets you, you can have a sip of my beer.”

“ _Mulder_.”

“What? He’s in middle school. He can have a sip.”

“He _obviously_ cannot,” she says, and Will rolls his eyes. He doesn’t actually want a sip of his dad’s beer. Over the summer he and his best friend snuck a Bud Light out of Parker’s mom’s fridge. It was disgusting, and they poured most of it down the sink.

“Your mom let him have a sip of wine on Christmas Eve last year,” his dad says.

This is totally true, and Will was totally sworn to secrecy, and he has no idea how his dad found out. His mom narrows her eyes. “She did not.”

His dad shrugs. “I’m just saying.”

His mom turns to him. “William.”

He cringes. “Yeah?”

“Did Grandma give you wine at Christmas?”

“I plead the fifth,” Will says, and his parents grin at each other.

“This isn’t a court of law,” his dad points out. “And you’re not on trial.”

“True. I still think it’s best for all of us if Mom drops this line of questioning.”

His dad looks at his mom. “He gets this from you.”

“You’re joking,” his mom says, totally deadpan, eyebrows as high as they can possibly go. “For the record, Mulder, I lived a perfectly law-abiding life until I met you.”

“You know that I met your college roommate, right?”

Will tunes them out as they bicker the rest of the way to the stadium. When they arrive his dad makes a beeline for their seats, even though they’re half an hour early. He hands Will a ten dollar bill and tells him to buy “hot dogs and whatever else looks good”.

Will eyes the money. “You know this will buy, like, a hot dog and a half, right? We’re in New York. And it’s 2012.”

His dad sighs and hands Will a twenty. “If you can find something your mom likes, you can keep the change.”

“Cool,” Will says, grinning. Every day he gets a little closer to being able to afford the iPhone that his parents will almost definitely not let him buy.

When Will comes back, snacks in tow, his mom is sitting next to his dad, leaning her head on his shoulder. In the sun her hair glows.

His parents aren’t technically married, which is slightly weird but doesn’t bother Will. He knows it makes Grandma crazy, and he kind of thinks that’s the reason they don’t just fill out the paperwork. They wear rings, and they call each other husband and wife. A few months ago Will fell down a Wikipedia hole and ended up on the page about common-law marriage. He told his dad that they were probably married after all, at least as far as the government was concerned.

“Interesting,” his dad had said, barely looking up from his book. He raised his voice. “Hey Scully, did you hear that? D.C. still has common-law marriage.”

“I knew that, actually,” his mom had said, coming in from the living room. “Strangely, that’s not a comfort to my mother.”

They’re married enough anyway, Will thinks. They start kissing and Will just grimaces and looks away. This is not his first time at the parental PDA rodeo. After a minute they notice him waiting there, and he delivers his dad’s hot dog and Coke and his mom’s fruit plate - who eats a fruit plate at a baseball stadium? Only Will’s mom - and the three of them munch contentedly. No one mentions beer.

The Yankees win, and the three of them walk home triumphant. “This is our year,” his dad says, but he says that every year. At dinner - Will got to pick, so it’s Indian food, his favorite - his parents get all cuddly and his mom reminds his dad about “the time we played baseball”, which _also_ happens every year. Will is pretty sure it’s a euphemism for something and he never, ever wants to find out what.

That night back in the hotel, Will is reading the third _Harry Potter_ book again. The door between their rooms is propped open with one of Will’s sneakers, and he can hear his parents’ voices even though they’re trying to be quiet. They are _never_ as quiet as they think they are.

“It’s getting closer,” he hears his dad say.

Through the doorway Will can see the flickering of their TV, which must be on mute. It looks like a strobe light, casting blue against the white walls.

His mom says, frustrated, “You can’t know that.”

“There are steps we can take,” his dad insists, “to protect ourselves - to protect Will.”

“Protect him from _what_ , Mulder? Bogeymen?”

His dad’s voice is low. “You know what.”

“So we should go hide out in the desert? We can’t uproot our entire lives _just in case_ the apocalypse happens, when there isn’t any evidence for it. We don’t _do_ that anymore.”

“You should hear the stuff they’re saying at MUFON—“

“I don’t _want_ to hear the stuff they’re saying at MUFON. That’s not our life anymore.” There’s a pause, too long, and her voice is pleading: “That’s not _my_ life anymore.”

That’s when Will gets up. He crosses his room and knocks on the door, even though it’s partly open.

His dad’s voice: “Come in.”

“I can’t sleep,” Will says.

His mom looks worried. “Were we keeping you up?”

He tries to decide whether or not to lie. “Yeah, kind of,” he says, figuring that’s close enough.

“I’m sorry, baby,” she says. “We’ll try to be quieter. Or we can shut the door, if you—“

“No,” he says quickly. “No, that’s okay. It’s not that bad. Sorry.” It’s not that he’s scared to be totally by himself in a hotel - obviously he’s not, he’s eleven, he’s too old to be scared of stuff like that - but it’s still kind of nice to have the door open. Even if his parents are having the weirdest possible conversation.

“Come here,” his dad says, patting a spot on the bed.

Will shuffles across the floor then sits down, scooting up so he’s between them.

The TV is playing a rerun of _Law & Order_, silently. “Dad,” Will says, his eyes trained on the TV, “what’s MUFON?”

Over his head, his parents glare at each other.

“I’m sorry you heard that, Will,” his mom says.

“What is it, though?”

His dad sighs. “The Mutual UFO Network,” he says. “It’s an organization I - we used to work with, when we were with the FBI.”

“The FBI works with a UFO Network?” Will knows his parents were involved in some weird stuff, though he doesn’t know many of the details. He also knows his dad has written some books about alien abductions and stuff, but that really doesn’t seem like the kind of thing the FBI cares about.

“Not officially,” says his mom.

Will says, “It seems like you guys did a lot of things unofficially.”

“Yes,” she says. “That’s true.”

He feels small and young. “Dad? What are you afraid of?”

“You don’t need to worry about this, Will,” his mom says, ruffling his hair.

“I deserve to know,” he says, somehow feeling even smaller, “if we’re gonna have to leave.”

At the same time both of his parents move toward the middle of the bed so he’s smushed between them, and his dad puts his arm around Will’s shoulders. “Your mom’s right, Will,” he says in his psychologist voice - Will hates that. “We’re figuring everything out. We don’t want you to worry about it.”

“It doesn’t matter if you _want_ me to. Now I’m worried.”

His mom sighs. “You’ve seen things on the news about the Mayan calendar, right, Will?” He nods and she continues, “There are some people who believe that - that the world is going to end this year.”

“Dad, do _you_ believe that?”

His parents have a conversation with their eyes that is so loud Will can practically hear it. “You can tell me,” Will says, frustrated. “I’m not a baby.”

“I don’t know what I believe,” his dad says carefully. “But these people I know - they think there’s a possibility that something big could happen at the end of this year. Something that could put all of us at risk.”

“And me especially, right?” Will asks. He can’t say exactly why he asked it - it’s just a sense he’s getting - but as soon as the words are out of his mouth, he knows he’s right.

After another eye-conversation, his dad says, “Yeah. You especially.”

Will nods. “Because I wasn’t supposed to be born.” This, too, is something he knows some of. He knows about his mom’s disappearance, her illness, her miraculous cure. The fact that she’d tried all kinds of stuff to have a baby and none of it had worked, until she got pregnant with Will, somehow.

His mom looks horrified. “That’s not true, love. Of course you were supposed to be—”

“But there’s weird stuff about me,” he insists, interrupting her. “I know that you did…tests and stuff, when I was a baby. I know that you thought I had powers.”

“How do you—“

“I just _know_. I know a lot of things.” Mostly because he’s pretty sneaky and his parents don’t lock any of their drawers. “And if you seriously think that the world is going to end in a couple months, you should tell me. I’m not a little kid anymore.”

“We just want to protect you,” his dad says.

“I know that,” Will says. “But it’s my life too, and I deserve to know what’s going on. Especially if I’m some kind of…freak.”

His mom shakes her head. “You’re not a freak.”

“Whatever I am,” he snaps. “If you think the aliens want me or whatever.” His dad’s eyebrows shoot up, and Will rolls his eyes. “I can connect the dots, Dad. A UFO network that thinks the apocalypse is coming?”

“William,” his mom says, using his full name, so she must be serious, “I don’t necessarily share your father’s faith in MUFON. But over the years we’ve encountered a lot of things that seemed improbable, or even impossible, that later turned out to be true. We’ve been discussing this because we want to make sure we’re prepared for all of the possibilities.”

“And one of the possibilities is that the world is going to end, and the aliens are going to come get me. Great. Thanks for the heads up.” Will starts to climb up out of bed, equal parts angry and annoyed and suddenly, sharply terrified, but his dad stops him with an arm across his chest.

“Sit down, Will,” he says, and Will does. His dad looks at him, so close that the bright blue of his own eyes is reflected in the indefinite color of his father’s. “That is not one of the possibilities.”

“But—”

“Your mom and I will not let anything happen to you,” his dad says, as serious as Will has ever heard him. “Do you understand? I know there are things we’ve kept from you, and we’ll be more open with you in the future, if that’s what you want. But we will _never_ let anyone take you away from us. Okay?”

Will knows that this is an impossible promise. He’s old enough to know that his parents don’t direct the universe, old enough to know that every promise is really only a wish.

But he can see the fear in his dad’s eyes, and Will wants so badly to believe. And maybe, sometimes, believing in something makes it true.

“Okay,” Will says softly, and when his parents both wrap their arms around him, Will doesn’t fight it. And he doesn’t go back to his own bed, even though he’s way too old to sleep with his parents.

But he doesn’t fall asleep, either. Instead Will lies completely still, listening to his parents’ breathing. He closes his eyes to count the stars behind his eyelids, and he makes a wish.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys I’m sure I got some of the details wrong from “My Struggle II” but there was no way I could watch it again and I couldn’t find a transcript so…yep. anyway. I’m going back to sleep now :) all of these drugs are giving me super weird dreams

**V. 2016**

When she shows up on his front porch in the middle of the night, it’s like he’s always known. Through the peephole her eyes are wild, the shadows beneath her eyes deep, and he just opens the door and says, “It’s you.”

For a minute she clearly doesn’t know how to respond. Finally: “You know who I am?”

Will looks her up and down, his mouth dry. “Yeah. Pretty sure I do.”

“There isn’t much time to explain,” she says, but he finds that she doesn’t need to, at least not out loud. He’s getting images off her like crazy; her mind reflects the chaos she’s seen in the last few days and he can watch it like a movie. The bodies, the honking cars, the smell of rotting flesh and fear. And one body in particular: a tall man with dark hair and a too-familiar nose. Will looks past the woman, out to her car. That same man is sitting in the passenger seat, and even from here, even with the headlights glaring, Will knows that the man would collapse if he weren’t strapped in.

Will’s own parents - his real parents, the parents who’d wanted him and kept him - are upstairs in their bed where he left them three hours ago. He’d closed their eyelids like he’d seen in movies and then thrown up in their bathroom sink. There was not even a moment when Will worried that he might catch the disease, too. Something deep in him knew that it was impossible.

“This is it,” Will says quietly. Hasn’t he dreamed this a thousand times? The end of the world. He’s been fixated on it for a year at least; the apocalypse dogging his footsteps. Pastor Jacob reading from Revelation every Sunday, stories on NPR about the heat death of the universe, that T.S. Eliot poem at school. _Not with a bang but a whimper._

He didn’t hear his parents die. It happened in silence. If a man dies and no one hears him, is he really dead?

The woman reaches up and touches his cheek, and he jerks back. Her voice is quiet but firm. “Yes, it is,” she says. “And we need your help.”

When he swallows it feels like there are rocks in his throat. “My parents,” he says, “they’re—“

“A lot of people are.” It should sound dismissive, but it doesn’t. The words sound like _so your parents don’t matter_ , but her voice sounds like _so you’re not alone in this_ , and Will finds that strangely reassuring.

All he says is, “Do you even know my name?”

“Of course I do,” she says, and in her head she says _I gave it to you_ , and Will hears that, too.

There’s a sharp, bitter wind, and Will stuffs his hands in his pockets. This weather is out of season, and he’d be worried about their vegetables, except he suspects that he will never come home again.

When they make eye contact it’s a shock to his system. Her eyes are exactly the same unearthly blue as his own. Will asks, “What do you need me to do?”

The woman rolls up her sleeve. There’s a bandage tied around her elbow, and he can see a yellowish stain around it. Iodine. “This disease,” she says. “You’re protected against it, and so am I.”

“I know,” he says.

She doesn’t even look surprised at his response. “We’ve been able to synthesize a vaccine using my blood.” She picks at the edge of the bandage, and the skin around it is pale, pale, pale. Will wonders how much she’s bled for this already.

“A vaccine,” he repeats. “Not a treatment.”

Her jaw is set. “That’s why we need you.” She glances back to the car, just for a second.

“That’s my father,” Will says, and the woman doesn’t respond. “Is he - he’s not immune?”

She shakes her head, but still doesn’t say anything. Her eyes are red and he’d thought it was from the stinging wind and the dust it carries, but that’s not it. Not at all.

“Then I won’t be able to do anything either.” In the dark Will can’t really see him, but he saw the woman’s memory of him: the discoloration on the man’s skin, the way his bones and muscles have stopped holding him up. “It’s too late, he looks the same way my parents did before they—“

She cuts him off. “You _can_ do something. Something I can’t do.”

He narrows his eyes. He doesn’t know if she’s doing something to block him on purpose, but the images he’s getting are much less concrete than they were before. Now all he can feel is her fear, and her desperation. “What?” he finally manages.

“A transplant,” she says, and if everything weren’t so completely insane right now, this is where he’d start thinking this was a prank. “We think a stem cell transplant - from you - will cure him.”

“How do you know we’d be a match?”

“I don’t. But we’re out of options.” The wind is whipping past her and her hair is flying everywhere. She’s shivering, but Will won’t invite her inside. He has a sense that this woman and his house exist in entirely separate worlds, and that letting them cross over would be disastrous.

Will takes a half-step back to shield himself from the wind. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the gale. “What will you do if I say no?”

There is nothing gentle left in her tone. “I don’t want to find out.”

That’s the wrong answer. Shaking his head, Will moves even further away and starts to shut the door. The woman blocks him, sticking her foot just inside the doorway. He stares at her in disbelief. “Did you really think this would work?” he yells, and the wind kicks up impossibly higher. His mom would be furious if she heard him talking like this to a stranger, but his mom is dead and Will is done pretending. “You thought you could just show up here and take what you need and go? You _left me_. I haven’t seen you for _fourteen years_ , and you turn up as soon as you need something from me? _Fuck you_. What kind of person _are_ you?”

With every word she flinches, but she doesn’t back away. “The kind of person who’s used to making hard choices,” she snaps when he’s done. “And I’m not going to let him die without a fight. And I’m not going to leave you out here by yourself.”

He seethes, “You did it before.”

“You have no idea,” she says, and her voice has gone so quiet that Will has to strain to hear her, “you have no idea what it was like.” 

And suddenly she’s unblocked him, or something, and he gets the stream of images back. He sees this same woman, younger, standing pregnant beside a grave. He sees her stumbling into an abandoned building; he sees her holding a baby in that same dark and desperate room. Then the baby - Will knows it’s him, and it’s the weirdest thing to watch - is moving a mobile over his crib. There are men in dark suits and an older woman yelling and this woman - his mother, his mother - curled in a ball on the floor, sobbing so hard it should break her.

And the man from the car, dead and alive and now nearly dead again, walking the razor’s edge. That man, holding Will as a baby and then walking away. Will screws his eyes shut tight but it doesn’t help, it doesn’t stop the images from coming. He always thought he wanted to know.

“I can tell you,” she says, the desperation creeping into her voice. It’s working on him. “There’s so much I want to tell you.”

His mouth moves, but he’s not sure he even says the words out loud. _What if I don’t want to hear it?_

In the midnight gloom the headlights of her car are a beacon. All the other lights have gone out - the power’s been dead for twenty-four hours and he hasn’t thought about why no one turned on their generators, but now, with a sick feeling, he understands why. Everyone else is gone. He can feel the panic rise, clenching his throat.

Will wonders how long it would take him to get lost in the dark, without any light to see by. If he’d ever be able to find his way home. If there would be anything left to come back to.

“William,” she says, and he realizes that this is the first time he's heard his birth mother say his name. It feels like the sign he’s been waiting for. Her eyes are bright and intense; she is haloed by the light. She asks, “Will you come with us?”


End file.
